I am a freelance writer with a focus on the Ballard neighborhood. I love connecting what is happening in the community with my own life. I was born to be at large.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Bella Umbrella

I’ve always loved umbrellas. Not using them, owning them. Looking at them. That said I don’t know why it took me over a year to visit Bella Umbrella after it opened. Lately I’ve been popping in all the time to visit the umbrellas that I’ve rented for the Ballard nuptials in June. I was shy about asking the owner Jodell Egbert for an interview because she has had local and national mentions. Then I realized that since she’s “all about Ballard” I needed to get over it.

Bella Umbrella
I would rather be chatting with Jodell Egbert of Bella Umbrella than interviewing her. Then we could just talk food, shoes and walking routes.

But after stopping in regularly to “visit” the umbrellas, I decided it was time to get in line behind The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for an interview. Those writers may have been able to talk weddings, floral and food, but could they speak Ballard?

Started as online business, renting and selling vintage umbrellas, Bella Umbrella has had a shop in Ballard since November 2008; the shop opened three weeks after owner Jodell noticed a “For Rent” sign in the neighborhood while walking her dogs. Having purchased a little house nearby, opening a shop for the business was a second homecoming.

Jodell’s first apartment as an adult was in Ballard; over the years she then “hit all the hills.” Years ago she wondered why someone would want to live in Ballard given its relative distance to the freeway. Now, we wonder together why does anyone ever need to leave Ballard?

“Everything I need is here,” Jodell said.

Her employees think alike, each living within blocks.

Jodell values the sense of Ballard community, and she loves her retail shop on the Northwest 70th block just east of 15th Avenue Northwest.

The block is its own sweet neighborhood, home of Honoré Artisan Bakery, Delancey, A Caprice Kitchen , Space to Create and old-timer Tarasco, among others.

The shop deliberately has a French décor. With its whimsical umbrellas it is a candy store for adults (although women may outnumber men).

On a block that is gaining national attention (see Orangette), Bella Umbrella brings yet another distinction: Jodell has the world’s largest collection of vintage umbrellas. If someone can prove that Jodell Egbert doesn’t have the largest collection in the world, she would like them to reveal themselves so they can talk umbrellas.

Jodell’s umbrella business began serendipitously with her own wedding and the search for an alternative to “the tent.” She found a collection of vintage umbrellas for sale on eBay and purchased all 50.

Although she now acquires three to five umbrellas per week, she has never again spotted another such collection, even though she has not missed a single day on eBay since that first acquisition in 1999. It is no exaggeration that the first purchase changed her course in life.

Jodell had a bubble umbrella as child growing up in small towns like Smokey Point and Carnation but didn’t own an umbrella until her wedding. More than 2,000 have passed through her hands since then, although she only owns about 800 now.

She did floral design for 16 years, often involving weddings. Beginning with her wedding (and then a visit to an umbrella shop while on her honeymoon in Paris), she was irredeemably hooked on umbrellas, from handle to tip. Jodell now designs her own line in addition to acquiring vintage umbrellas.

Bella Umbrella ships umbrellas all over the world, supplying them for weddings and photo shoots, television and movies (reason alone to see the next “Sex and the City” movie), but it’s sharing her collection in person that Jodell enjoys most.

Pity the shopper in Indiana or Cyprus who cannot open the umbrellas as they choose rentals for an event or for purchase. Visitors marvel at each umbrella; ones that are different underneath, fabrics that shimmer, ruffles that earn a parasol its name of Lacy Southern Belle. The rentals go by numbers, while umbrellas available for sale reveal their names to Jodell and her staff. Soda Pop, Neapolitan, Petticoat, GiGi.

I could chat with Jodell and her assistant Natalie Cordova all day, but then this interview might not beat The Wall Street Journal piece to print. (They’re holding their piece until their next torrential rain.)

Magazine covers and photo spreads are discretely framed on the walls, but Jodell describes the path to Bella Umbrella’s portals as “glacial.” After the business was mentioned in Vogue, “nobody called.” After Martha Stewart, there was interest in the “Pink Pagoda.”

Now people email and they call, locals get to pick up their rental umbrellas in person. The number of umbrellas unfurled inside each day is enough to dispel any old-wives’ tale about bad luck.

In truth, the person who steps into the veritable hands-on umbrella museum provides as much pleasure to Jodell as they receive in turn.

All the cities in the United States (and all the countries in the world), yet Ballard is home to Jodell Egbert and the world’s largest collection of vintage umbrellas. Why leave Ballard indeed?

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..